The Greatest Ghost and Horror Stories Ever Written: volume 7 (30 short stories)

Arthur Conan Doyle, Arthur Machen, Edgar Allan Poe, J. Sheridan Le Fanu, H. P. Lovecraft, Edith Nesbit, W. W. Jacobs, M.R. James, Guy Preston, Henry De Vere Stacpoole, Wilkie Collins, Clark Ashton Smith, Robert Louis Stevenson, Alfred Noyes, Alexander Woollcott, Ambrose Bierce, Richard Connell, Vernon Lee, Samuel Blas, Rudyard Kipling, H. G. Wells, George G. Toudouze, H. C. Mcneile, L. P. Hartley, Walter Scott, Guy De Maupassant, John Buchan, Lord Dunsany, Saki

Description

If you were looking for the Holy Bible of the horror anthologies, consider yourself lucky, because you just found it!
Cosmic horror, supernatural events, ghost stories, weird fiction, mystical fantasies, occult narratives, this book plunges you into dark domains and brings you face to face with surreal monstrosities.
This seventh volume of “The Greatest Ghost and Horror Stories Ever Written” features 30 stories by an all-star cast, including Sheridan Le Fanu, M. R. James, Wilkie Collins, Ambrose Bierce, Richard Connell, Edgar Allan Poe, H. P. Lovecraft, Arthur Conan Doyle and Arthur Machen, among many others!

Sujets

• Tales
• Robert Aickman
• Weird fiction
• The Most Dangerous Game
• Escape (radio program)
• The Fall of the House of Usher
• List of reportedly haunted locations in the world
• The Cask of Amontillado
• The Call of Cthulhu
• The King in Yellow
• Horror
• Fear
• Supernatural
• Ray Bradbury
• Inception
• The Listener
• Haunted
• Mystery
• Red Lodge
• Waxwork
• Witches
• Demonic
• Murder
• Red Room
• The WELL
• Per Yngve Ohlin
• Curse
• Revenge
• The Open Door
• Ghost
• Free
• Magic
• Touch and Go
• Undead
• Sonate pour piano nº 14 de Beethoven
• Démon (esprit)
• Midnight Express
• Anne Rice
• Paranormal
• Vampire
• Stephen King
• Bad lands
• Pit and the Pendulum
• Ghosts
• Aliens, el regreso
• The Moonlit Road
• The Familiar
• Lost Hearts
• August Heat
• Wandering Willie's Tale
• Horror Stories
• Do Not Disturb (TV series)
• Characters of Peter Pan
• Sleepless Nights
• Vamps
• Number of the Beast
• Psychopathy
• The Three Impostors
• DevIL
• Who Knows?
• Dracula's Guest and Other Weird Stories
• Open Window
• The Rats in the Walls
• Markheim
• MS. Found in a Bottle
• The Horla
• Edward M. Lerner
• Infernal
• Masters of Horror
• The Shadow Out of Time
• Carnacki
• The Complete Works
• The Gorgon
• Weird
• Walking Dead
• Ghost story
• They

Informations

• Publié par: Pandora's Box
• Date de parution: 22 février 2018
• Nombre de lectures: 20
• EAN13: 9789897784347
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE GREATEST GHOST AND HORROR STORIES EVER WRITTEN
||| volume 7 |||
2018 © Dark Chaos
 
 
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without prior permission of the publisher.
 
Table of Contents
 
 
 
The Black Coat
The Dead Man of Varley Grange
The Inn
Lost Hearts
The Middle Bedroom
Mad Monkton
Markheim
Midnight Express
Moonlight Sonata
The Moonlit Road
The Most Dangerous Game
MS. Found in a Bottle
The Mystery of the Semi-Detached
A Night in Malnéant
The Novel of the Black Seal
Oke of Okehurst
Revenge
The Shadow Out of Time
The Silver Hatchet
They
Three Skeleton Key
Touch and Go
The Valley of Spiders
W. S.
Wandering Willie’s Tale
The Well
Who Knows?
The Wind in the Portico
Probable Adventure of the Three Literary Men
The Music on the Hill
 
The Black Coat
by J. Sheridan Le Fanu
 
 
 
I was born into a rich and important family in Tyrone, Ireland. I was the younger of two daughters and we were the only children. My sister was six years older than me, we didn’t play much together when I was young and I was only twelve years old when she got married.
I remember the day of her wedding well. Many people came, all of them laughing, singing and happy. But I felt sad when my sister left with her new husband, Mr. Carew.
She was always very nice to me, nicer than my mother. And so I cried when she went away to her new home in Dublin. My mother and father didn’t love me — they wanted son and were not interested in me.
About a year after my sister got married, a letter arrived from Mr. Carew. He said that my sister was ill and that she wanted to come home to Tyrone and stay with us, to be with her family. I was sad that she was ill but also very happy about her visit.
‘They’re leaving Dublin on Sunday,’ my father told me, ‘and they’re arriving here on Tuesday evening.’
Tuesday came, and it was a very long day. Hour after hour came and went, and I listened all the time for my sister and her husband. Now the sky was dark and soon it was midnight, but I couldn’t sleep. I listened and waited. Suddenly, at about one o’clock in the morning, I heard a noise far away. I ran out of my bedroom and down to the living-room.
‘They’re here! They’re here!’ I called to my father, and we quickly opened the front door to see better. We waited there for a few minutes and we heard the noise again, somebody crying far away in the night. But we saw nothing. There were no lights and no people there. We went outside, waiting to say hello and to help my sister with her bags. But nobody was there; nobody came. I looked at my father and he looked at me. We didn’t understand.
‘I know I heard a noise,’ he said.
‘Yes,’ I answered. ‘I heard it too; father, but where are they?’
We went back into the house without another word. We were suddenly afraid.
The next day a man arrived and told us that my sister was dead. On Sunday she felt very ill, on Monday she was worse and on Tuesday, at about one o’clock in the morning, she died... at the same time that we were outside the house, in the night, waiting for her.
I never forgot that night. For the next two years I was very sad- you could say that I stopped living. I didn’t want to do anything or speak to anyone. Mr. Carew soon married another young woman in Dublin and I felt angry that he forgot my sister so quickly.
I was now the only child of a rich and important family, so before I was fourteen years old men started to visit our home. They wanted to meet me and, perhaps, to marry me. But I didn’t like any of these men and I thought I was too young to be married.
When I was sixteen my mother took me to Dublin.
‘Dublin is a big city,’ she said. ‘We’re going to meet richer and more interesting men than the ones back home in Tyrone. We can easily find you a good husband in Dublin.’
In Dublin I began to be happier. I met a lot of friendly people and I went dancing every evening. A lot of young men came to speak to me and asked me to dance; I liked talking to them. I started to live and laugh again and I didn’t think about my dead sister all the time.
But my mother was not so happy. She wanted me to find a husband quickly. One night before I went to bed she came into my room and said, ‘Do you know Lord Glen fallen?’
‘Oh yes,’ I answered. ‘He‘s that ugly old man from Cahergillagh.’
‘He’s not ugly and he’s not old, Fanny,’ my mother said quickly. ‘He’s from a very rich and important family, too, and...he wants to marry you. He loves you.’
‘Loves me? Wants to marry me? But he’s making a mistake, mother!’ I said. ‘I don’t love him. I can’t marry somebody I don’t love.’
‘Think about it, Fanny, ‘my mother answered quietly. ‘He’s a good man and he wants to marry you. You’re a very lucky young woman.’
My mother left the room and I sat quietly for a long time. Lord Glen fallen was a nice, friendly man, I thought. I didn’t love him, no, but I did like him. He always talked about interesting things. I never felt happy at home with my mother and father but I always felt better when I talked to him. The next morning when I saw my mother I said only one word:’ Yes.’
Lord Glen fallen and I got married the next spring, and two days after our wedding we said goodbye to my family and left Tyrone. Three days later we arrived in Cahergillagh and I saw my husband’s beautiful house for the first time. It was near a river and there were many trees and flowers in the garden. Birds sang in the trees and the sky was blue. I stood next to him and looked at it all and I left very, very happy.
‘Come, my love,’ said my husband. ‘You must come in and meet Martha. She cooks and cleans and knows everything about the house.’ So we went into the house and I met Martha, a friendly old woman with smiling blue eyes. She showed me round the house. Suddenly I felt excited to be there: it was a very happy place- women sang in the kitchen, men build fires in the living-room and there were dogs and cats everywhere.
‘Come with me now, madam,’ said Martha, ‘and look at your bedroom. Then we can take up your bags and you can wash before dinner. ‘I followed her and soon we arrived at a big brown door.
‘This is your room,’ she said and she opened the door. I stood and looked, suddenly cold with fear. In front of me stood something big and black; I didn’t know what it was... I thought it was an old coat, but without anybody inside it. I jumped back quickly, very afraid, and moved away from the door.
‘Is something wrong madam?’ Martha asked me.
‘Nothing. Perhaps it’s nothing,’ I answered quickly. ‘But I thought I saw something in there. I thought I saw a big, black coat there when you opened the door.’
Martha’s face went white with fear.
‘What’s wrong?’ I asked her. ‘Now you looked frightened.’
‘Something bad is going to happen,’ she said. ‘When someone sees the black coat in this house, we know that something bad is going to happen soon to Glen fallen family. I saw the black coat when I was a child and the next morning old Lord Gela fallen died. Something bad is going to happen now, madam... I know it.’
We went down to have dinner. I felt unhappy and afraid, but I didn’t say anything to my husband about the black coat. I wanted to forget about it and be happy again. The next day Lord Glen fallen and I went for a walk together to look round the house and gardens because I wanted to know my home better.
‘I like this house and all the people here,’ I said. ‘And I’m happy to be here with you. It’s much better than Tyrone.’ My husband was very quiet for a long time. He walked with his head down, thinking. Then, suddenly, he turned to me, took my hand and said,’ Fanny, listen to me. Listen carefully. There’s something I must ask you. Please, only go into the rooms in the front of the house. Never go into the rooms at the back of the building or into the little garden by the back door. Never. Do you understand me, Fanny?’ His face was white and unhappy.
I understood his words, but I didn’t understand why he was a suddenly different man. Here at Cahergillagh he never smiled or laughed any more. Perhaps the back of the house was dangerous, I thought. But he didn’t want to talk about it any more. We went back to the house without speaking and again I tried to forget his words and to be as happy as I was before.
It was about a month later that I met the other woman for the first time. One day I wanted to go for a walk in the gardens- it was a beautiful day and I ran up to my room after lunch to get my hat and coat. But when I opened the door of my room, there was a woman sitting near the fire. She was about forty years old and she wore a black coat. Her face was white and when I looked closel